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Too Many Modules

SolarWinds,

You are now starting to look and act like the big guys, CA, Tivoli, etc.

One of the things that makes SolarWinds more attractive over these guys was price and licensing/module complexity.

I am afraid SolarWinds is going down this path now with all the add on modules.

For Example, User Device Tracking was touted (MAC address tracking), when we purchased NPM,NCM. You finally got it working, and now want to charge us additional for it.

I feel ripped off now, and no better off than with the other guys.

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lateforwork2

I agree, becoming a complicated CA/Compuware/HP Openview solution. Seems to be the same with APM also. You can do simple web transaction monitoring with APM, but it appears that they will now charge for their new "web transaction monitor". It will not be included in APM.

Not happy.

byrona

I agree with both of you. I wish the mac address tracking was included with NCM and NPM as I already own those two products. I also wish the Synthetic Transaction monitoring was included with APM as I already own that and that functionality was one of the reasons that I purchased the product in the first place. I also wish more storage system functionality was included with NPM IVIM so that I don't have to consider purchasing Storage Profiler for that functionality. I have noted my feelings on this in another thread as well.

On the flip side of the argument, if SolarWinds keeps including more and more functionality in fewer but larger products or "modules" it drives up the cost of development and support for those products which is then passed on to us and then we will be upset because the products are more expensive to purchase and have maintenance for; this also creates a higher cost of entry to start using these products in the first place.

Alternatively, if SolarWinds breaks up functionality into more smaller products or "modules" it keeps the cost of development and support down for each of the different products resulting in less expensive products but may require us to purchase several of them to accomplish our required solution. It's a difficult balance to maintain and certainly a challenge SolarWinds is up against as they spread their wings to include more and more functionality.

I don't claim to know the answer here, I just wanted make sure both sides of the argument were properly represented.

Keep these kind of comments coming as I think it's important feedback for SolarWinds so they can continuously improve and try and maintain that balance.

dfairles

Yes, I was led to believe that these were features that would be added or updated in NPM and APM.

It will be nearly impossible for me to justify spending more on modules, when there will be so much pushback from management after I talked them into the less expensive solution, that will be now just as expensive by the time you compare apples to apples. They will be very angry that we did not purchase the product that had better third party support and a larger user base.

SolarWinds Marketing just took a very wrong turn.

dfairles

However, they almost included all that functionality already in NCM,NPM, APM. They could have chosen just to make what was there better.

One of SolarWinds big selling points used to be that you didn't need to purchase a lot of modules to flesh out functionality.

Now what are they going to say that will set them apart from the others?

lateforwork2

I agree with dfairles....

They were so close to the functionality that they will now 'sell'. It could have been easily added to current products.

Funny....I never saw any of this happening until they went public. Who are they trying to please now? Because it sure isn't the customers.

byrona

However, they almost included all that functionality already in NCM,NPM, APM. They could have chosen just to make what was there better.
One of SolarWinds big selling points used to be that you didn't need to purchase a lot of modules to flesh out functionality.
Now what are they going to say that will set them apart from the others?

In my opinion the things that set SolarWinds apart from the "big guys" (OpenView, Tivoli, Unicenter, BMC, etc) are as follows...

SolarWinds has more responsive support
- Learning to work with their support does have a learning curve but once you overcome that, it works well
More agile development
- Support for the always changing industry is much faster with at least two major functionality releases a year
They listen to their customers
- Just about all of the more recently added features were based on customer feedback
Supportive community
- When I was running HP OpenView the community was nowhere near as supportive as the Thwack community

Like I had previously stated, I do agree with your comments and have stated the same thing myself on other threads, I just wanted to point out the balance difficulties that something like this present to a company like SolarWinds.

lateforwork2

In my opinion the things that set SolarWinds apart from the "big guys" (OpenView, Tivoli, Unicenter, BMC, etc) are as follows...
SolarWinds has more responsive support
Learning to work with their support does have a learning curve but once you overcome that, it works well
More agile development
Support for the always changing industry is much faster with at least two major functionality releases a year
They listen to their customers
Just about all of the more recently added features were based on customer feedback
Supportive community
When I was running HP OpenView the community was nowhere near as supportive as the Thwack community
Like I had previously stated, I do agree with your comments and have stated the same thing myself on other threads, I just wanted to point out the balance difficulties that something like this present to a company like SolarWinds.

More agile development, however they still seem to have large issues with each release, sometimes I really have to sit back and wonder if they actually tested it on different systems. I install an RC or GA and find issues almost instantly. SO, agile, yes.....comprehensive, debatable.

They listen to their customers - Yes they do, however when you have an issue or feature request that is vital to you, but nobody else brings it up....you might has well not even wasted your breath, because it wont be in any release, ever.

dfairles

I do see the balance issue, however I think that they have swung too far the other way on the module issue.

I wouldn't even mind the module issue that much if the modules were well integrated, but they are not. It seems like totally seperate development teams that do not develop to the common framework. How long has it been promised that NCM and NPM would be integrated? Why must I run seperate scans on the network when the two are running on the same box?

If I purchased a module, heck, why are we calling them modules, when they are really stand alone products? Anyway, I would expect them to be more like an extension to Orion. I may as well buy a different stand alone product if it is not really a part of Orion and I will have to pay for it.

amngibson

I agree but I would like to calirfy and point a couple things out.

1. I understand that SW must continue to aquire and develop new products in order to enter new markets. This is a given and is to be expected. This ensures SW continues to be a solid company. Its customers, shareholders, employees, etc. needs these efforts.

2. The company should also equally continue to expand and add to features to the existing product to enable its existing customer base.

What I am feeling righ now is solarwinds is concentrating on aquireing new products and require new and existing customers to purchase these new modules to beable to use them. In some circumstance the new products offer *working features* that are similar or overlap very closely with features that are either broke or were promised in the existing applications. This is exstremley fustrating to me as a customer. I have been waiting for tweeks/enhancments/bugfixes to the current product to get what I need, only to here that a "new product" was aquired to fix exactly what I have been waiting for.....oh and by the way, I have to purchase a license for that new product.

Lets balance this a little bit SW. Lets get the Prodcut Mangment team at the same table as the strategic direction team. Lets make sure we are on the same page. Lets get some sprint cycles reserved for the strategic direction team so they can get enahncements and bug fixes prioritized. This way they wont have to go looking for an aquisition to get that "new customer" and enter a different market.

This was existing customers can benefit without haveing to shell out tons of money every time we want to expand the use of SW.

smartd

I've been much less involved with Thwack as I currently believe that Solarwind's focus is solely on selling more seats. Functions are added to discover more nodes and interfaces (sell more elements) but NOTHING to filter unneeded devices. I have 5400 nodes in the ignore list (which is unmanageable in itself).

I've asked repeatedly for a page for seeing enhancement requests for the product and the ability to vote on these. This still hasn't been implemented. I can only believe that is because Solarwinds does not want us to see the list and see items that are ignored since they don't sell more seats.

It is so incredibly frustrating that the discovery engine is so limited. No default custom attributes, no device type filtering, etc.

Something simple like rediscovering an existing node that was replaced with a different device is so painful. Unknown interfaces... Can't sync node name with snmp system name when this data gets updated.

No duplicate IP mangement in the product. No resource listing all the IPs on a device. No integration to IPAM (in NPM). No Trap/Syslog integration with NPM events.

I quit using NCM... A cisco only product. Don't get me started there.

Very frustrated.

FormerMember

I've asked repeatedly for a page for seeing enhancement requests for the product and the ability to vote on these. This still hasn't been implemented. I can only believe that is because Solarwinds does not want us to see the list and see items that are ignored since they don't sell more seats.

Filtering interfaces by type is on the roadmap. We haven't done it yet, but it's certainly not for any nefarious reasons. We simply haven't gotten to it. We keep our prices down relative to the Big 4 management companies by reducing our expenses, which forces us to choose which features we build and which we defer. That ones been deferred a few times in favor of other features that gave customers more "bang for the buck", but we'll get to it.

dfairles

I've been much less involved with Thwack as I currently believe that Solarwind's focus is solely on selling more seats.

Agree. Every time a new feature, module, app comes out, We all get spammed by sales. The sales team is starting to be like dealing with a car salesman, with promotions, end of month, end of quarter, deal of the day, etc. We just don't ever make purchases that way, and I don't know of any IT shops that do. That approach is really back fireing with us. I have had to call and ask that certain salespersons never call us again becuase they were so annoying.

All our vendors usually treat us as a partner. They work with us, find out what we need, and work to help us solve problems together, not hound us into buying something.

smartd

Filtering interfaces by type is on the roadmap. We haven't done it yet, but it's certainly not for any nefarious reasons.

No, not nefarious. Just a focus on new features and a lesser focus existing functionality. I used to hope existing functions would get fixed, but not knowing the roadmap (the whole public company deal, I know..) I've given up on fixes. I'm using the product as best I can, working around the limitations as best I can.

NPM has got enough functionality to be useful, and discovery works as long as I ignore alternative interface IPs and devices I'm not interested in. I ONLY look at the found devices, ignore the dups and ones I don't manage, and import the rest. It works. Every now and then I break down and spend a day updating all the custom fields that discovery has no way to add. I do it using the "Custom Attribute" tool on the server since it allows cutting and pasting, or use a SQL query to update stuff. A pain but it works.

Since I'm not a Cisco shop, I've had to depend on UnDP in a big way. Thank God for this tool. And yes, thanks for the UnDP graphing modules you recently added. Very helpful.

Again, I understand the need to add features that customers want. It just pains me when the product is so difficult to maintain on a day-to-day basis. I like your the intent of your products and price. I appreciate your (and Brandon's) candid discussions on Thwack. I just wish NPM supplied more than 2/3rds of my needs.

dfairles

We keep our prices down relative to the Big 4 management companies

This is just simply not true anymore for some of us at least. By the time you add all the hardware, OS, pollers, and Modules for SolarWinds, in our case it is about the same or even in some cases, SolarWinds has a higher TCO.

Ciag

This is a great thread. We've been a customer of Solarwinds for just over 4 years now and have experienced many of the gripes that have been mentioned in this thread. I'm glad we have the ability to discuss these kinds of topics openly on the forum, which I feel is testament to Solarwinds ongoing customer focus effort.

Having said that I would like to contribute to this thread as I feel it important to stand up and be counted on these crucial issues, even if it is to reiterate some of the previously mentioned topics.

UDT was the catalyst for this thread and I feel rightly so. This is functionality that should be included in NCM there's no doubt in my mind about that. It is in essence something I have asked for previously see Here

byrona wrote about responsive support and a supportive community and I couldn't agree more it is something we are very please with as SW customers.

With regards to development agility and listening to customers? There's no doubt that this is true however it's the capacity in which the information is used by SW that appears to be in question here I feel.

It's my opinion that development robustness has sufferred with the number of bugs and upgrade issues we have expereienced being higher than ever in the past year. The release notes need work as well. They have improved but still have a way to go. We've spent time troubleshooting upgrade errors to find out from support that the errors can be ignored but weren't mentioned in the notes. Upgrades in general are not as smooth as they use to be.

With regards to features not working there have been many instances where expected features were somewhat lacking in their delivery. Take for instance NCM and its web console; based off our own experience and from others I contacted with similar sized environments there was at least a 6 month period where the NCM web console was unusable and for a long time after that it was not a convenience to use. Infact when we purchased NCM 3 years ago I wouldn't have considered it an enterprise tool at all seeing how much it struggled to accomplish most tasks. I would mention the single threaded poller in NPM but that is on the way out finally which is great. IPSLA I feel is too light in functionality to warrant it's own license and should be either beefed up or included as part of NPM license.

One pattern I seem to recognise with new products or new functionality is that upon initial release they rarely work or have any useful reports, graphs or displays for our enterprise sized environment, this almost seems intentional. It appears that they are initially geared towards smaller scale environments. NCM, NCM webconsole and UDT are all textbook examples of this. Yet they are sold as scalable enterprise tools. Makes me question if they are taking any suggestions from customers in enterprise size environments at all when developing the new tools or new features other than Thwack feature requests. I can go into more detail on this but I think my post is long enough as it is lol.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out, we are not unhappy customers, far from it. These are some observations we've made during our time as customers. I still feel SW is a leading light in many ways for their support community.

And of course there are always 2 sides of the coin.

Regards

Ciaran